Frequently Asked Questions About Neurofeedback
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●	What are the benefits of Neurofeedback Training?
●	What symptoms respond to Neurofeedback?
●	Can Neurofeedback can benefit everyone?
●	What is low energy Neurofeedback system (LENS) training?
●	What is ZENGAR NEUROCARE (ZNC) Neurofeedback training?
●	How does Neurofeedback work?
●	What does brain self-regulation have to do with any of the conditions Neurofeedback is used for?
●	How does Neurofeedback help sleep?
●	Are there any side effects from Neurofeedback?
●	Does Neurofeedback interfere with medication?
●	How long does training take?
●	Is Neurofeedback covered by insurance?

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF NEUROFEEDBACK TRAINING?
Neurofeedback addresses problems of brain dysregulation, which is the underlying cause of many complaints.  The primary benefits of neurofeedback reported are:

What symptoms respond to Neurofeedback?
     While not a medical treatment, neurofeedback has been shown to be a powerful addition to traditional therapies for the symptoms of:

CAN NEUROFEEDBACK CAN BENEFIT EVERYONE?
     Yes.  The brain is amazingly adaptable, and capable of learning and changing its neuropathways.  It can learn to make adjustments to improve its own performance.  When your brain learns to self-regulate appropriately, your health, stability, and performance improve.  As you learn to have control over focus, attention, and impulsiveness, you become more skillful and competent in everything you do.  With practice your brain learns to make adjustments that profoundly affect your abilities, allowing you to improve your life.  Everyone can increase optimum performance through improved concentration, sharpness, and focus for academic, business, creative, or athletic achievement.
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WHAT IS LOW ENERGY NEUROFEEDBACK SYSTEM (LENS) TRAINING?
     LENS neurofeedback consists of providing feedback which is paired with gentle EEG-driven radio signal to a person’s brain. This signal is delivered through extremely low energy fields (much weaker than the field that surrounds a digital watch or a cell phone).  Because the signal is based on--but not equal to the brain’s dominant frequency, it helps change the brainwaves in a way that enables the brain to re-regulate in a more healthful manner.  In this way LENS produces a measurable change in the brainwaves without conscious effort from the individual receiving the feedback.  More often than not an individual does not notice any difference during the session.  Over time, however, the body’s capabilities for autonomic self-regulation is strengthened so that the conscious mind is able to address the demands of life more efficiently and effectively.  All that is required is for a person to do is to sit quietly and allow whatever experiences there might be to emerge. Uneven, low frequency, high amplitude, brainwaves, which are often the sources of dysregulation, ease up and diminish with each training session.

     LENS has been shown to be dramatically effective with a variety of problems involving dysregulation of the central nervous system. With LENS work most clients acquire a greater sense of clarity, of self-control, and of feeling in balance.  LENS seems to prepare the nervous system to be more open to new learning and new growth opportunities. For this reason LENS is an excellent tool which facilitates and potentiates other healing modalities.
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WHAT IS ZENGAR NEUROCARE (ZNC) NEUROFEEDBACK TRAINING?
    The Zengar Neurocare (ZNC) neurofeedback approach is not a treatment for a particular condition. It is a training to increase the brain’s resiliency and flexibility.  ZNC relies on the inherent capability of the brain to re-organize itself in response to information it receives about its own functioning.  ZNC gives the brain “feedback” gently, so that it can stabilize (through self-regulation) while increasing its efficiency.  When this re-regulation happens, a variety of unwanted symptoms can disappear.

      ZNC is a simple and effective approach that has been described as “similar to an aerobic training for the central nervous system”.  For example in riding a bicycle, the more adept one is at riding, the less “wobble” there is as one rides.  A less skilled rider will lean his bike to one side and then to another as he peddles, creating a wide wobbling path with each push of the pedals.  If anything unexpected crosses his path, his precarious balance puts him at risk of falling.  On the other hand, an experienced rider cuts a small path with very little excess movement from side to side, making the riding very efficient.  He creates a base of stability from which quick changes in direction or speed are possible easily.  In an analogous way, the more disordered (unskilled) a brain functions, i.e. the more variability (wobble) in its functioning, the less efficiently it behaves. Using ZNC the central nervous system is given comprehensive information in “real time” (moment-to-moment) about its effective behavior, and that information will help the brain to restore its optimal functioning. 

     ZNC training does not require a person to consciously attain a specific mental state.  The training happens unconsciously.  All that is required of a person is watching a moving picture on the computer screen and listening to music.  With the help of the computer the brain is able to process the information that tells it when it is producing effective patterns of self-regulation without a person being aware of what is happening.  A client will often report profound feelings of relaxation, of being focused, or of feeling a sense of well-being during the sessions as changes in the brainwave patterns emerge.  Over time healthful pattern become firmly established.  This way of training is so easy that even young children can benefit from it.
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HOW DOES NEUROFEEDBACK WORK?
     The brain must be able to move quickly and easily between all states, including states of hyper-focus, relaxed focus, excitement, and relaxation.  When the brain gets stuck in inefficient patterns of activity, it loses its ability to move easily between its various states, and/or it has difficulty maintaining a particular state when required.  The ability to move efficiently between states is termed “flexibility.  Its ability to maintain a stable state like ongoing focus is termed “resilience”. 

     The brain’s ability to “self-regulate” depends entirely on its ability to respond appropriately to both its internal and external environments (stimuli).  Well-functioning self-regulation requires that the brain be able to move efficiently between periods of flexible behavior to periods of resilient (stable) behavior.  Neurofeedback helps to foster flexibility and resilience in the brain by helping the brain in developing new neural connections, and by encouraging the brain to use the appropriate neural networks that it needs for optimum self-regulation.  The information “fed back” to the brain from the computer enables the brain’s many systems to cooperate and coordinate. 

     Neurofeedback exercises the existing healthy networks in the brain and also helps the brain create new connections as well.  In this way the brain improves its ability to self-regulate by using and strengthening its neural networks.  With better self-regulation the brain is more able to maintain healthy states and to move more easily between various states.  For example, when a person needs to focus, he or she won’t become easily distracted (because the brain is more resilient), but when there is a need to stop thinking and go to sleep, the person can do that easily as well (because the brain is more flexible).  The well-functioning brain is both resilient and flexible.
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WHAT DOES BRAIN SELF-REGULATION HAVE TO DO WITH ANY OF THE CONDITIONS NEUORFEEDBACK IS USED FOR?
   The disorders that respond well to neurofeedback training can all be described in terms of the flexibility and resiliency of the brain. For instance, an overly anxious person is easily aroused and finds it difficult to relax once aroused. Such a person has a brain that has difficulty resisting arousal. This situation shows a lack of resiliency-- a brain that is easily aroused in an inappropriate situation is not resilient. On the other hand, once such a person is aroused (upset and anxious), the brain cannot relax. It becomes stuck in a state of arousal. This illustrates the brain’s lack of flexibility. A person with anxiety cannot move flexibly between states. Because neurofeedback training promotes resilience and flexibility, persons with anxiety will find that they can enter situations that will no longer produce an inappropriate state of arousal (they become resilient) and if they do become upset, they will be able to calm themselves down without producing symptoms of anxiety (they become flexible). So, even if a person cannot stop from thinking something that might produce anxiety, the likely-hood that the thought will produce anxiety is significantly reduced by neurofeedback training.

     As another example, migraines can also be characterized in terms of flexibility and resiliency. Symptoms of migraine headaches can usually be attributed to some triggering event such as a particular food or stress. The brain reacts to the trigger. Neurofeedback training reduces the number and severity of migraine symptoms by promoting resilience and flexibility. Improving resilience reduces the chance that the brain will react, and improving flexibility allows the brain to stop reacting and move back into a balanced state more quickly. Migraine suffers will find that not only are the number of migraine symptoms reduced (increased resiliency), but that when they get symptoms indicating that a migraine is about to start, the migraine itself may never occur (increased flexibility).
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HOW DOES NEUROFEEDBACK HELP SLEEP?
    Many of the problems that respond well to Neurofeedback training are also associated with sleep disturbances. Interestingly, just because someone gets 8 hours of sleep, it does not mean that he sleeps well! People who have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, people who sleepwalk, have nightmares or night terrors, or who wake up feeling tired may exhibit a variety of symptoms.  These include among others:  poor attention, hyperactivity, low energy, depression, irritability, and trouble with memory. These symptoms will often resolve themselves when sleep improves.

     Like the waking state, the sleep state also requires flexibility and resiliency. Flexibility is needed to move from wakefulness to sleep, and it is needed to move between the various stages of sleep. Resiliency is needed to stay asleep, to stay in a sleep stage for as long as required, and prevent over-arousal so that one nightmares or night terrors can be avoided. Even clients who think that they are sleeping well when they begin training often report that they are sleeping better after neurofeedback training.
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ARE THERE ANY SIDE EFFECTS FROM NEUROFEEDBACK?
    Generally speaking there are no side effects. The kinds of neurofeedback used at Potomac Mindworks have never been shown to cause new symptoms.  However, with LENS, like with homeopathy, and other energy-based healing methods, there may be a temporary intensification of symptoms that have existed in the past. This can happen as part of the process of regaining health and balance. Any such increase in symptoms, however, is usually short-lived. Occasionally with ZNC a person can feel tired or a little foggy.  That usually passes within a half an hour after training.
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DOES NEUROFEEDBACK INTERFERE WITH MEDICATION?
   You must be medically stable to engage in neurofeedback.  If you are taking medications, you must be on a stable dose.  If you are in the process of starting or stopping medications, it is not time to begin neurofeedback training until you have achieved stability.

     If you are stable on medication, you should continue to take it.  You should understand, however, that the effects of medication are strengthened with neurofeedback.  This means, for example, if you are taking medications for sleep, the dose you are taking can make you sleepier.  Or if you are taking a medication that stimulates you, you might begin to feel overly wired.  For this reason, it is important for you to maintain close contact with your prescribing physician and discuss with him any changes you notice in the effectiveness of your medication dosage.  It is not unusual for people to reduce or even eliminate their need for medication.
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HOW LONG DOES TRAINING TAKE?
     The time depends on the nature of a person’s dysregulation.  For problems of recent origin (such as a recent head injury, or a sudden onset of depression, or a situation-triggered anxiety) with a person who has a fairly healthy neurological system, the training may be short—from 10 to 20 sessions.  For problems of longer duration, 20-40 sessions may be required.  For deeply entrenched, chronic problems, treatment may be commensurate with the amount of time the condition has existed.
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IS NEUROFEEDBACK COVERED BY INSURANCE?
    Potomac Mindworks is a fee for service practice, and payment is expected at the time of service.  However, because I am a licensed psychologist, my professional services do often qualify for reimbursement. If you have a health insurance policy, it is your responsibility to seek information about whether the policy reimburses for biofeedback or psychotherapy.

     At the end of each month of service, you will be provided with a statement that includes all the information you will need to file a claim.  If your policy reimburses for psychotherapy out of network, you will usually receive some reimbursement for that service.  Because the status of biofeedback is still considered “experimental” by many insurance companies, they have been less likely to cover it; however, some do.  In any case, a call to your insurance provider can help you learn the extent of your coverage.
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